The present invention relates to a method and equipment for managing prepaid subscriber information. The prepaid subscription can be an individual subscription or a group subscription.
In telecommunications systems: such as the pan-European digital mobile communications system GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), the use of prepaid SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards is increasing. Prepaid SIM cards relieve network service providers of credit losses. Furthermore, they enable parents to set an upper limit for the telephone bill beforehand. As a third benefit, they enable roaming subscribers to pay for their local calls at local tariffs, whereas using the SIM card of their home service provider results in paying international tariffs for connections to their home network and back.
Usually service providers allow the subscribers to call an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service through which the service subscribers can check their account balance and add more money to their accounts. Some service provides also offer a web based interface, so that the subscribers can check their account balance and add more money to their accounts via the Internet. This adding of money is called recharging and it is done by means of vouchers or credit cards, for example. Some of the service providers sell different types of vouchers, which differ from each other for example in the number of ‘call units’. In addition, each voucher has a voucher validity period, after which it cannot be used for recharging.
There are subscribers who do not use their prepaid SIM cards at all or who use only one prepaid SIM card and never recharge. A problem with the current prepaid solution is that once a prepaid subscription has been added to the system it will never be removed. This generates many problems for service providers running out of for example subscriber numbers, such as MSISDNs for mobile subscribers. Another problem with the current prepaid solution is that for example a subscriber with an originating prepaid subscription can continue to receive calls for years and years even though his account has already been used up. Thus the service provider will not get any payment from him.